


Totem

by DameRuth



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Classic Who, Fluff, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-08
Updated: 2009-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-04 06:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peri learns that an ancient Earth concept can be successfully applied to the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Totem

**Author's Note:**

> Heh. I just had to do it. FWIW, this completley encapsulates my view of Six's personality -- CB knew what he was doing when he picked out that lapel pin!

The good-looking young man two tables over, with whom Peri had been surreptitiously flirting, finished his drink and checked his timepiece. He rose from his table, and gave Peri a last smile and a gesture somewhere between a wave and a salute before he walked off. She smiled after him and took a sip of her own drink, feeling pleased. She wasn't seriously "shopping" today, but it was fun to be noticed.

Sitting across from her at the small sidewalk table they shared, the Doctor sprawled happily in his chair, in one of his rare, mellow moods. He'd offered no comment whatsoever on Peri's little nonverbal byplay with their neighbor. Peri wasn't sure if that meant he didn't notice, or he didn't care. It could be hard to tell with him, but either reaction suited her.

The Doctor stretched, and slumped back in his chair, a little lower than before, blinking in the sunlight, with a slight, sleepy smile on his face. The weather was fine enough, he'd draped his patchwork coat over the back of his chair, and was looking relatively informal in shirtsleeves and waistcoat. If one could call his usual appearance "formal" . . .

The stretching was contagious, and Peri followed suit, settling back to watch the world go by.

It was quite the world – like something out of _Blade Runner_ except that it wasn't raining, the sky was a clear blue, the sun was shining, the streets were clean, and the people bustling by all looked happy and prosperous. Well, okay, maybe _Blade Runner_ wasn't the best comparison, but it was the only thing Peri could think of that even approached the complex, vital scene before her . . . and there _was_ a little vending cart across the street selling noodles.

"What a positively _superlative_ day," the Doctor sighed, half to himself.

"It's like, totally tubular," Peri agreed, pitching her accent forward into her nose and going all-out Californian. She'd lived so many places her everyday accent was a bit scattered, but if she concentrated she could manage pretty accurate regional dialects. "Awesome to the max."

Normally, ValSpeak was good for getting a rise out of the Doctor, but this time he merely responded to her teasing with a cocked eyebrow, and the acerbic comment, "If you don't start speaking English, Peri, I shall have to move to another table and pretend I don't know you."

He remained solidly slumped where he was, however, negating his threat, and Peri grinned at him. He snorted, and turned his face back to the sunlight, closing his eyes.

_Maybe he's got Seasonal Affective Disorder, and that's why he's always so crabby,_ Peri thought idly. _Wonder if a sun lamp in the TARDIS would sweeten him up . . . _

Movement at ground level caught Peri's eye, and she looked down to see the café's cat, a small, tidy tortiseshell, winding its way through the forest of table- and chair-legs. After a little consideration, the cat hopped up onto an unoccupied chair near to where Peri and the Doctor sat. It sat blinking in the sunlight for a moment, then went into a long, luxurious stretch.

By chance, so did the Doctor, and the expression on his face so closely matched the cat's Peri had to laugh.

He settled again, and his eyelids cracked open partway as he raised his eyebrows at her questioningly.

"Cats really are your totem animal, aren't they?" she said.

He harrumphed, and straightened up a little in his chair. "I wish you wouldn't attempt to apply such . . . primitively superstitious concepts to me. Time Lords do not have totem animals. Never have and never will."

Peri just shook her head. The cat was watching them, so she leaned forward and patted her leg hopefully. "Here, kitty!" she called. "Kitty, kitty?"

The cat's ears twitched towards her, but the animal otherwise remained motionless.

The Doctor looked over, noticed the cat, and laughed.

"Really Peri, you have no idea, do you?" he told her, with affectionate condescension. "You're going about it all wrong. A cat isn't a dog, you know. You can't just call a cat over -- you have to make it interested in you."

He demonstrated, leaning forward, and wiggling his fingers close to the ground. The motion caught the cat's attention, and it perked up, rising to its feet. The Doctor clucked his tongue, and wiggled his fingers again.

Intrigued, the cat hopped from its chair, and padded over to sniff at his fingertips. Then, apparently considering the two of them to be introduced, it allowed the Doctor to stroke it, rubbing its small brindled cheek against his hand. When he settled back in his chair, the cat jumped into his lap and settled there, curling up into a neat ball of black-and-orange fur.

His point made, the Doctor leaned back and closed his eyes again with a smug indolence that almost matched the cat's.

\--

The Doctor was attempting to get the TARDIS to behave, and had been all morning. Peri was sitting in a corner of the control room in a chair borrowed from the library, half watching the Time Lord's ongoing battle with his ship and half following her crystal reader.

The Doctor had been a little annoyed at her presence earlier, accusing her of hanging over him, but she'd convinced him she was interested in watching his skilled piloting of the timeship. Mollified, he'd changed directions with typical speed and expansively invited her to sit, watch, and marvel at how such things were "really done." And then promptly forgot about her, of course.

In reality, when the Doctor's handling of the TARDIS got this lively, Peri preferred to be close to the exit, in case they had to abandon ship in a hurry – but she was keeping that bit of motivation to herself.

There didn't seem to be any immanent disaster looming, however, so Peri was getting more and more absorbed in her reader – or she had been, until the reader started acting up, refusing to flip though pages of text in the proper order. She tried resetting it, but had no luck.

She looked up and eyed the Doctor speculatively. He was in the sort of mood where he would brush off questions or direct requests for assistance with an annoyed, "Can't you see I'm _busy,_ Peri?"

There was always the indirect route, however . . .

"Doctor . . ." she began, and trailed off.

"What?" he snapped, looking up from the console.

"Oh, nothing, sorry . . . carry on . . ." she said, trailing off again. She frowned, and began rather obviously fiddling with her reader, ignoring the Doctor.

She heard him padding over, and grinned to herself.

He reached down, took the reader from her, and fiddled with it himself for a moment. He frowned, and then brightened when he realized what was wrong. He punched through the controls with rapid-fire speed, and then handed it back to her.

"There, that's sorted it. You just need to go into the menu, hit 'options,' 'recalibrate,' and 'set page to default.' Then it should start right up again." He smiled at her, generously sharing his superior knowledge.

"Thanks, Doctor! Sorry to disturb you." Peri gave him her best "grateful rescued damsel" smile.

"Oh, no bother, no bother at all . . ." he told her airily, with a dismissive wave of his hand, as he started back to the TARDIS console. He opened a panel, reaching in to adjust something, and was rewarded with a loud, popping snap and an impressive shower of bright sparks.

Startled, he hopped two feet backwards from a standing start, landing lightly on his toes with a wide-eyed look of offended dignity. Peri smothered a laugh; if he'd had a tail, it would have been twitching from side to side.

As he moved to close back in with the control panel for Round Two, Peri looked back down at her reader, and broke into a wide, amused smile.

_Sometimes,_ she thought, _primitive superstitions have a firm basis in reality . . ._ Her smile widened into a grin as she flicked to the next page in her book, and started reading.


End file.
